Requisite
by Zaedah
Summary: Joined, they spun the earth. Separated, they stopped its rotation.
1. Sink

_The first in a series of unrelated, non-sequential vignettes._

* * *

**Requisite**

It happens because she loses focus and this is the cannon that sinks the ship. It will take hours to gather the shards afterward.

When the fog lifts, hers is the wreckage. His is the victory.

The warning not to fight could only be met with hostility but she hadn't expected to lose so quickly. Splintered pieces of her rebellion litter the atmosphere, slowly piercing a body both eager to snap and reluctantly intrigued.

Sweet wounds.

The offer to heal what he breaks is balm from a fiery hand, heated by pleasure that leaves scorched flesh. He wants to brand her and she wants the marks. He thinks she is inclined to his plan but there is so very little of her remaining.

A leaf can only follow the river's flow.

This one is deceptive, giving the appearance of one easily brushed aside. Speak and his confidence crumbles. Kick and his arrogance scatters.

But he's stronger than the part he plays and it's enough. What her efforts will crumble and scatter in him is swiftly reassembled, a testimony to the will that wears down the careless opponent.

Clutching near while pushing away is a skill she's refined and it's not enough.

His determination is a terrible beast and submission is her own monster's reborn instinct. She will thrash against this desire to hoist the white flag. She will not admire his scaling of the walls.

She will not acknowledge that she's thrown wide the door.

What promises, to rebuild upon her foundation something stronger. Permanent. She'll believe only when all other recourse fails. Permanent is never the eternity of her choked dreams.

But he is resolved to wait. Patient enemies are the worst breed.

Ruin is the requisite of this love.


	2. Thorn

**Requisite**

Because it lives under his skin, he'll try to flush it out. A deluge to drown the parasite that drains what is vital to his identity, ineffective but proactive.

Drinking it into numbness does not remove it.

Her thorn has been left in his flesh too long. There's something urgent in the pressure now, a clever sting that only hurts when acknowledged. Inattention allows her to burrow beneath layers he doesn't want to have.

Beyond the reach of alcohol, which doesn't stop the effort.

Because intoxication means the bliss of blurred vision. If he can't see what she's doing to him, he's safe.

Salvation by inebriation. Yet he's never felt more condemned.

It's not that she seeks to change him. It's that he's changing. The process of osmosis makes him unrecognizable, less a shell of himself than a remolding. The shaping is painful, however much it benefits him.

The future and his loftier place in it shouldn't concern him.

Too young to submit. Too old to adjust.

There was a tattered perfection in the incompleteness but he's not allowed to be deficient now. And so he drinks for spite,, resurrecting old errors with every glass.

It's not surprising when he's found. Criminals know to alter the routine. He cannot.

She's disappointed by his lapse and he's distracted by her pout. She'll finish his last drink and with liquored lips she'll tug him back to maturity. He'll go because some thorns are worth the discomfort.

Sobriety is the requisite of this love.


	3. Strings

**Requisite**

Sometimes she cannot sleep for the press of argumentative priorities. The repressions of wiser civilizations are mocked here, freedom an entitlement to be flaunted.

This melded people forget the battles of their ancestors. The past is for nostalgia. Life, for them, is always about now.

And now is when she always fails. Flaws in expected reactions keep her up, the manners of this place colliding with the lessons the sand has burned into her skin.

They nursed her on the milk of detachment and spooned her the solids of a focused sternness. Training lent her a fierce facade to accompany the exterior and its reassurance maintains the use.

Difficult to discard what fits.

This group would not survive the rigors of Mossad. Would not survive the guilt of actions done for country but rarely undertaken by choice. They want justice, enjoy its processes, become transparent by the ease of facial tells.

Skin is meant to be fluid and hers will form around any expression that suits the desired end. Smiles are simple, the mechanics of raising muscles is similar enough to a grimace to remain in her repertoire.

While forcing happiness hurts, wearing ghosts of pain is natural.

Only she never gets the eyes right.

One of them knows to watch for this and that makes him dangerous. This one is learning to stand too close. The essence of this braggart country is his exhalation and there is nothing to admire in it.

Except...

He smiles as though he'd emerged from the womb with the gift. She'd entered the world screaming.

Like a phantom limb, there are forgotten triggers for upcurled lips that are recalled only from a distance and labeled inoperable. But he works the tendons. Conditions them to respond on command and against her will.

She is a marionette and his hands are never rough on the strings.

There are times when the black seeps into the soul and the spirit is disinclined. Still, he evokes the reaction, a chuckle evading her containment.

He does it on purpose. She tries to mind.

Laughter is the requisite of this love.


	4. Red

**Requisite**

The red hair is all wrong, vibrant and straight and matted beyond saving. The face is fragile in his hand as he turns the cheek to stroke a thumb over the bruise. A flowering purple too angry a shade for the paleness beneath.

He knows how their children would look, a pleasing complexion under a crown of mild brown, a genetic compromise. Dimples, perhaps.

The playground holds no matches for the offspring in his head but there are pieces he'd like to borrow when constructing the whole. It's not the physical traits he wants as much as the innocence. The trust without suspicion. The love without recompense.

They are unreasonable and he's never wanted one more.

The girl keeps an eye on the clouds and he wishes she would name their shapes. A bunny. A dragon. Her killer.

A child of ten will grow no older.

He will scrape at the pink chalk under her nails, will step automatically around the blood. Too much for the smallness of the vessel.

Later, while the departed is claimed and mourned, he will watch the same sky. She'd taken the clouds with her to wherever purity sleeps. But as the sun is swallowed by the horizon, the crucial star in his life's constellation approaches in a respectful orbit.

The one who centers the conclave of his chaos doesn't speak as her hand connects with his. Touch is how they inflict and repair bruises.

He thinks it might be wrong to want a child in a world that takes them back. But there are possibilities in his lover's womb and he can't resist the act that leads to parenting.

Contact is the requisite of this love.


	5. Spectrum

_Dedicated to those who helped me surpass my initial fundraising goal on Day One! Many personal, sobbing thanks** : )**_

* * *

**Requisite**

An insurgency is whispered beneath inconvenienced breath.

It's immeasurable, an overwhelming volume and mass and she's unable to bring her brows down from the heights. So wide-eyed it hurts.

Surprise indeed.

But mostly it's terror. Someone has clearly attempted to bring visible life to the word gaudy and it breathes against her neck, inducing chills that would be cruel to show.

They'd stripped the dark away, engaged the spectrum's full wattage and vomited color. It's mutiny against monotone.

The observance of this day is below amputation on her list of importance.

Her mother pushed her into being and this is nothing to commemorate. But they will note the passage with flowers and folded decorative cards that express what is only slightly better read than spoken.

But the offense of balloons can almost be forgiven. Because there is cake.

The confection has the softest texture, fading into particles of bliss in her mouth. She will thank them, not with embraces but by a mouth tainted at the corners with chocolate.

However uncomfortable the center of attention, it is possible to savor it.

An empty plate, for once, is not a statement of her heart. Not today.

She is not special,, knows they will do this for the next in line and she'll ask that knowledge to bring her pulse down. Waiting until heads are turned, she swipes at the residue but his fingers are faster.

Too near, he offers no apology nor claims responsibility.

Still, intuition says the cake was his choice. Because it was right. Elegant gray, white trim, divinity on the tongue. Custom made for her. Like him.

Sweetness is the requisite of this love.


	6. Coercion

**Requisite**

In the end, coffee comes between them.

Conscious thought is relegated to sunlit hours but his body knows enough, even in the dead of predawn, to hold tight to whatever moves. Letting go is for those who value cooperation and loneliness, He desires neither.

In the weighing of closeness versus wakefulness, he finds no reason to err toward the latter.

The lithe body struggles but his strength deters success. It is, after all, her fault that he's weary.

Chasing away dreams in favor of reality is acceptable. Real life has much to recommend it when she is no longer consigned to imagination.

But there's a world in this bed and the population is limited to two.

She will have to fight for it but his coercion is no match for the aroma.

In fairness, he can smell it too; the automated coffee machine that heralds the day. It grants him few favors. The alarm announces its own message, advances in home technology making no friend of him now.,

She is warm. Alive. Here. At least until she works limbs out of the tangle, leverages against a mattress that will be infinitely colder by the loss.

Efforts conquered by addiction, he is resigned to waiting for her return, cup in hand. There's little time but her caffeinated system will make her hasty.

He's never known anyone so proficient at a time-crunched orgasm.

She brings him no cup of his own, so he'll steal the coffee from her lips. The bitter residue and her wicked hands wake him fully. Good morning.

Indulgence is the requisite of this love.


	7. Shield

**Requisite**

The strongest deterrents are sometimes the least expensive.

It was her brother who'd noted the potency of her hair. Soft curls portray innocence, which has its uses. Letting the breeze stir its weight becomes coyness that targets crave.

But her preference runs to severity. Pulling the thickness into a tight ponytail is constructing a fortress to shelf what still lives in curls and shyness.

Others can see the daunting foundation and be in no hurry to approach it. Thus a travel bag is never without lock picks, ammunition and hair ties.

He does the same, only at greater expense. An armory in the closet. Italian fabric serves as castle, moat and guard dragon. And yet suits are not solely to keep others out, but to keep himself in.

A man held together by charm and artifice. A man who believes his own lie. A man who calls her on the same self-serving sin.

Lives dedicated to a religion of concealment and never so much as with each other.

Because he wants to storm her barracks but fears soiling his suit. Because she wants to burn his shield but fears moving into range.

Neither moves and a collection of aching years can pass this way. They'd have to give up portions of themselves to breach the gap.

Revealing what lays between the bricks, scraping up the mortar to weaken the whole is accepting the rights of the observer.

Easier to polish the pretense of armor even while one stands stripped by the wind.

But eventually the years dwindle down to tense minutes and they try, since the alternative is the same loneliness that defines them. He'll loosen her hair. She'll loosen his tie. And wait for gravity to settle the rest.

Naked and for a time all too visible.

Exposure is the requisite of this love.


	8. Gravel

**Requisite**

That it hurts is the second thought to prick at a mind slowly dimming.

The world is already blackened by a sky that stretches overhead like an ink spill. And while the dawn will approach soon, it will only grow darker for the observer.

Stargazing would be abandoned if he could move.

Beneath him, a blessing of cushioning dirt above old asphalt. Beside him, a car in worse shape than himself. There's glass embedded in chilled skin and blood in a mouth no longer functioning.

There is no help to call for.

Three days he'd been away, securing their next life and she waits with dyed hair and a fresh name not yet comfortable on his tongue. Approaching headlights, direct and blinding, had been unconcerning to a man eager to conclude the journey.

Mildly distracted but not unaware. Painted lines require little but to be obeyed. Until the opposing car veered.

No time to react. Only to brace.

He remembers the flying. And the landing. But the other sped away from the unmoving body and he wonders if they're satisfied.

That she'll be furious is the first thought.

Heed no warnings, a mantra that earns him trouble every time. Another might learn from the awkward bend of the leg, the unfortunate turn of the arm, the gushing head wound.

Two years of hiding, of trading identities, of minding every face. Yet they've been found and the need to warn her churns hotter than the pain.

He shouldn't move, but he will.

Spitting out a tooth and her name, he trails his fifth alias in the gravel and begins to crawl. The burn phone waits on the ground, having come through the windshield just after his body.

Her voice is worth the agony.

Run, he tells her and prays it's not their last word. She's not him and therefore the warning will be heeded. Anxious breaths filter through the line but he's too tired to focus on her words.

She might have cursed his carelessness. Or professed love. Or neither.

In the arms of nowhere, he will sleep.

Protection is the requisite of this love.


	9. Duck

_No one can say I'm not posting fast enough for this series! I only hope you're enjoying these random scenes of many Tiva dimensions..._

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**Requisite**

Somewhere in the firefight, an unrelated state of affairs will be pondered. It could be said that she does her best thinking while pinned down.

Bullets penetrate plaster while the sad notes of a shell casing symphony tinker on the filthy cement. There's an echo in the empty warehouse, a sound strangely like heartbreak.

The team holds the line.

Justice cannot retreat because right must, in this idealistic country, prevail. Everyone's a superhero.

But no one is bulletproof.

Their leader maintains his position despite the gang's machine gun enthusiasm, directing traffic behind a pillar and looking entirely inconvenienced by events.

They had such decadent plans today.

She watches the green of his eyes darken as the enemy's aim improves. Too close to her head and she'll duck lower in deference to his worry.

The probie's call had roused them from bed. For this.

Danger eats from the plate of security and some may tire of such things. Their former boss certainly did, leaving his second to fill the gap. Again.

What had once been opportunistic trysts has devolved into stolen minutes. He stands so near and yet she misses him.

Too many things press for his attention.

She is not forgotten but no less forsaken.

He cannot combat the claws of responsibility, not now when they need him to lead. And this time they follow.

Follow into the fray and into forever should the moment insist.

Exiting with their lives does not mean a return to her sanctuary. There will be interrogations, debriefs and reports. Justice means paperwork.

They will leave at purposed intervals, citing a truthful exhaustion but lying about the remedy. What is frowned upon between partners is abjectly forbidden in these new roles.

His key slides into her lock and decadence is resumed because survival is an underrated aphrodisiac.

Time is the requisite of this love.


	10. Dusk

**Requisite**

There was a girl.

This is how many of his stories start. Usually because they expect it but mostly out of a responsibility to truth.

In the brashness of youth, he'd slaved for the concept even as he worked around it.

It's a wonder the listeners believe any part of his retelling. Had she not been the axis of his universe, he'd doubt too.

They think he's made her up. An impossibility. They're only half right.

A slender frame, raven's eyes and curls so richly earthen that his fingers used to soak up the life of it. A ninja, he'd tease and her smile was his breath.

No exaggerations needed. If anything, their adventures are tamed for the audience and the pain behind the bits are left in the sand of younger years.

Joined, they spun the earth. Separated, they stopped its rotation.

A crackled voice explains how denial gave way to vice which slid into commitment. Partners in work, in life and in this dusk. Even the ravages are a blessing.

She'd sworn to never leave him, a promise only partially kept.

The rocking chairs weren't in the plan. But they glide so sweetly into a future where he loses the fight for his hair and she loses the battle for her memory.

The stories are for the second generation to follow them. But also for her. Her name is spoken often because she still recognizes its sound, if not his reverence for it.

There was a girl, he'll remind her as her hand rests snug inside his arthritic grip.

They see her frailty; speech and recognition locked away by the brutality of age.

Grandmother never fired a shot, never frightened men, never suffered tortures. But they humor the old man when he brags about his wife's former radiance, still visible whenever his traitorous eyes water.

She's still here but some part of him is already mourning.

So he clings to even the harshest of memory's offerings. Guns and wounds and lies and despair. Because they are what made the later happiness possible.

She was no damsel and he was no prince but his stories contain the element of such romantic majesty.

Fairytale is the requisite of this love.


End file.
